


Blind as a Fox

by Perturbo



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Blind Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28766772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Perturbo/pseuds/Perturbo
Summary: After a terrible accident, Tails is left blind for the rest of his life. How will his life change, and how will he deal with these changes? (Rated T for possible swearing and other teenage activities. This is an original interpretation of the Sonic world, and is not based off of one single universe. It is a mixture of multiple worlds and my own personal additions.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. Wake Up, Tails

Tails opened his eyes. But then why couldn't he see anything. All he heard were whispers and sobs coming from somewhere distant. The whisper came from a man in a gentle yet somber voice while the sobs were from a girl probably around his age. Tails raised his hands to his face, and he felt something rough covering his eyes. That explained the darkness, or did it? Surely a simple bandage wrapped around his face wouldn't be enough to block out the light completely? Perhaps the lights were off and the curtains were closed. That had to be it.

Uncomfortable with the idea of moving around while his eyes were covered, Tails stayed in his bed. Or, at least, he assumed it was his bed. It could have been Shadow's bed for all he knew. Then, a certain pain nobody liked came onto his brain. Morning headache. Why did it feel so much like a hangover? He was remembering what had happened yesterday. Or at least, he assumed it was yesterday. He remembered fighting Eggman. Nothing major, just a couple badniks and other such robots. But there was a big one. Something that Tails needed to break from the inside, not the outside. But the last thing he remembered was a bright light and maybe an explosion? Was he in a hospital? That would explain the bandages. This was beyond frustrating. Tails wanted to claw the bandages off his face so he could see where he was. Slowly, he felt his ears closing in on a voice. It was like a radar catching a new signal. His hearing was getting better by the moment.

"So that's it? You can't do anything?" That was Sonic's voice. Who was he talking to?

"Isn't there any kind of surgery that we could do? Maybe use the chaos emeralds to heal him?" That was Amy's voice, although it was filled to the brim with tears and sobs. Surgery? What surgery? Did he lose one of his tails?

Tails instinctively reached for his namesakes, and was relieved to know that his tails were perfectly fine. He smiled to himself for a moment, recognizing how years ago, he would have wanted nothing more than for someone to remove one of his tails. It made him reflect a bit on himself, even if it was cut short by the sounds of Amy sobbing and someone, probably Knuckles, punching the wall in what was probably grief. He then heard a new voice he didn't recognize.

"I'm sorry, but his mutant DNA makes it hard for us to transplant something onto him. Perhaps if he had any known relatives, but as of right now, we really don't have many options."

That was enough for Tails. He needed answers, and he wanted them now. He got up, stumbled a bit over his bed, and found his way to the nearest wall. He placed his hand firmly onto the wall, leaning his weight onto it while the other hand reached out and flailed wildly like a headless chicken trying to find a way. He managed to not trip as he found his way to the door, and by then he realized this was not a place that he knew of. The layout of the room felt like a single bed room in a hospital, as it had railings for people who had difficulty standing. In this case, it helped Tails out tremendously.

When he arrived at the door he opened it without hesitation and he heard the movement of some clothes, the sudden movement causing the light wind sound, and a soft gasp. All indicating that he had everyone's attention on him.

"Hey guys? What happened to me? Why is there a bandage over my eyes?" Tails spoke into the void, hoping that he was at least speaking in the right direction. He felt his hands shake a bit which he tried to counteract by gripping on the door handle harder. His tongue started to feel a bit dry now as well. It was quiet for a couple seconds before he heard his brother speak.

Sonic was hesitating. "Well, you see little guy, when the giant crabbot we were fighting exploded with you inside it, it uh...threw you against a rock. Hard. And when we found you, you were...um..." Tails noticed how nervous Sonic was. His voice was hesitant, careful as if he was walking on eggshells, and overall, he seemed scared. Tails never felt so much sadness in Sonic's voice before.

"So what? What happened? Did I get a concussion? Did my fur burn off? I seem fine right now" His voice was strained throughout his worried speech. The dryness filled his mouth and throat, making it difficult to say the next words.

The other voice than spoke to him. Tails assumed that the voice belonged to the doctor, and he would have been correct in that assumption.

"Mr. Prower, the mixture of the bright light from the explosion that happened right in front of you and the small pieces of gravel and stone that got in your eyes when you landed face first onto a pile of rocks severely damaged your retinas. I'm sorry to inform you that as of now, and maybe even until the end of your days, you are blind."


	2. Same Home, But Not Really

Tails sat in front of his working desk. He shifted around a bit, feeling incredibly agitated. Despite the chair he sat on being the place he spent most of his time working, he felt like he was in uncharted territory. He could reach out and grab his screwdriver without hesitation, since he knew where everything was on this desk by heart, but he'd never felt so dysfunctional before. Tails didn't want to sit in front of his desk anymore. It reminded him of what he was missing out on more than anything. He reached for his walking cane, which was actually just an umbrella folded up. He wanted to go buy one, or even better, make one himself, but that could wait.

Tails made his way to the bedroom. He was getting used to navigating with his cane, but he would still need to memorize the layout of his house fairly quickly. And also learn Braille. And also get rid of all the light, clocks, calendars, basically everything that assumed he could see. He didn't want anything like that in his home.

He barely stumbled on his way over to his door, as a cane was a much more effective navigation tool than his flailing arms. Although, those support bars at the hospital were useful. Maybe he could install those in his house?

Tails got to his bed and lay down. He opened his eyes just so he could close them again. The feeling of closing his eyes felt weird now. But what was even weirder was that he had his eyes closed all the time. But closing your eyes before letting out a loud groan and rolling around in your bed as you got lost in your thoughts was an experience he could still go through.

Sixteen. That was the first thought that went into the little fox's head. He was only 16 years old, and he had his vision completely removed from his young life. What did this mean for him? Would he be able to follow Sonic around in his adventures? Would he be able to fly using his tails or by plane? What about engineering in general? Would he have to give up his way of life?

Tails grabbed his two, bushy tails and cuddled them like they were a furry body pillow. He often did this when he was stressed. He tried to think of literally anything else.

The last couple of hours? They were a bit of a blur. Everything had happened so quickly. Dr. Honk, his doctor, had told him he could go home, but he needed to have someone with him if he ever wanted to leave the house. At least until he became used to being you know what. Sonic, Amy, and Knuckles were there with him when Dr. Honk was telling him this, and they all agreed they would take turns to help Tails whenever he needed help. Sonic wanted to help Tails get home, which he did by carrying Tails in his arms.

"Don't worry, Tails. I'll go slowly." Now those were words he never thought would ever come out of Sonic's mouth. Of course, his "slow" was still 40 miles per hour, but the fact still stood. He was slowing Sonic down. After he dropped Tails off, Sonic told him that he was going to tell some other people—their friends of course. Not just random Joes—about this unexpected turn of events.

Oh, what he would have done to have some mint candy right about now. His brain was filled with unwanted, disturbing thoughts and Tails wanted none of it. Just when things were getting really messy in his head, he heard a soft tap on his front door. Then, the tap became a knock. Tails really wasn't in the mood for visitors at the moment, but he didn't want to come off as a shut in. He got up and grabbed his cane, and made his way to the front door. Unfortunately, he was still very slow, and his visitor thought this was him not wanting to confront them.

"Mr. Tails? Please, come out and open the door for us." He heard the young bunny's voice, and felt awful for not being able to be faster.

"Tails, dear, Sonic told us what happened. Please open the door for us." That was Vanilla, Cream's mother.

Tails tried to hurry to the door, giving up on safety at this point. He almost tripped over a book on the floor, but he made it there in one piece. He unlocked the door and politely greeted the guests

"Hello Ms. Vanilla. Hello, Cream."

"Chao!"

"Hello, Cheese." Tails put on a smile for the nicest people he knew and for Cheese.

Cream was taken back a bit by the sight of one of her heroes and best friends in a state like this: bandages wrapped around his head and his face looking towards neither of his guests. It was so strange not being able to see his cheerful, happy blue eyes.

"Mom and I made some goodies for you when we heard the news. We figured you might need them."

"I also wanted to come by to clean your home for you, dear." Vanilla offered sincerely. The rabbits both had something in their hands. Vanilla had a duster and a pair of dirty gloves she used for house cleaning, and Cream had a basket of warm food.

"Thank you so much for your help…I really would be so lost without you guys." Tails felt himself tearing up just a bit. He pressed the bandages against his eyes to wipe the tears off. It was getting itchy under there too. He should probably reapply those.

"Thank you. Really, but please don't clean my workshop. I need to keep track of all the things there." He told Vanilla, while he opened the door some more to let the rabbits enter.

When Vanilla came into Tails' home, she noticed his 'cane'.

"Oh, Tails, we need to get you a proper cane. My father used to use a cane before he passed away. Maybe I can lend you his?" Vanilla politely offered, bringing the small fox boy in for a hug. However, the intended effect of calming the boy down and giving him motherly affection backfired and instead startled him when she touched him without warning. He really wished that people wouldn't suddenly touch him like that, even if they meant well when doing so.

"Thank you, Mrs. Vanilla, but I think this umbrella works well for now. I want to build my own cane." Partly true, partly not. At the moment, he had no intentions on building anything, but he did want to make one eventually. However, that would have to wait until he was used to working without sight.

Vanilla nodded, then blushed when she realized that action meant nothing to someone like Tails. She patted him on the shoulder and said, "Alright, dear. Why don't you and Cream go ahead and eat some of the goodies that we baked? Meanwhile, I'll clean your bedroom."

Tails nodded in return, and stumbled his way over to the couch. He was still trying to memorize the layout of his house by how many steps it took from one place to another. Ten steps from the bed to his bedroom door, 25 steps from the bedroom to the front door, etc.

Cream sat down next to Tails and asked nervously, "Mr. Tails? Will you ever be able to see again?" She gave Cheese a mini croissant to chew on.

Tails didn't answer her question. He reached out for the basket, but missed it by a mile. His hands flailed around, trying to find the basket, but to no avail. Cream watched this for a second before reaching for the basket herself," Mr. Tails, let me help-"

"I can do this myself, Cream!" Tails snapped at her, but he immediately regretted it. After a moment's hesitation, he continued, "I'm sorry, Cream. I shouldn't have yelled at you like that. That was wrong of me, I'm sorry." He placed his hands on his lap, and asked Cream, "Could you perhaps guide my hand to the food?"

Cream nodded, not noticing how that meant nothing to him. She gently held his Tails' wrist and moved it to the basket. Tails thanked her in a small whisper, which she responded with a soft whisper of her own.

They remained silent after that, and no noise came out from either of them apart from the sounds that came from chewing brownies. Vanilla returned to the living room after cleaning Tails' room and walked over to her daughter.

"Tails," she said, removing the gloves from her hand. "I dusted your books and made your bed. You also had a lot of old food in your fridge, so I took the liberty of cleaning those out as well. I tried my best not to mess up your organization, but I might have changed up the orders of some of your books."

"That's okay, Mrs. Vanilla. I won't be reading those any time soon." Tails finished the bagel he was chewing on and chuckled to himself in a self-deprecating way.

"Cream, sweety? Do you want to stay with Tails a bit longer?" Vanilla asked, trying to ignore Tails' comment.

"I think I'll leave now. I hope you get well, Mr. Tails." Cream answered, getting up and lifting Cheese.

Tails tried to get up, wanting to see them to the door.

"Oh no, no need to get up, deary." Vanilla assured him, which he complied to. He sat back down while the two rabbits said their goodbyes and left.


	3. Do Not Try That Ever Again

A couple of days have passed since everything happened, and a lot had changed in the days following his accident. Tails asked Sonic to get rid of anything that were no longer useful to him because of his condition. Clocks, calendars, and books were all thrown away. Tails then asked Knuckles to install support bars all around the walls inside his home. He would have done it himself, but he had to give up after he lost all of the screws that came with the bars. It took some explaining to Knuckles why there were just random screws all over his house. Amy also came by once with some medical stuff. She removed that damn bandage that started to itch a lot, and applied some medicine on his eyes, along with some eyedrops. Apparently, they helped with the multiple scars that were in his eyes that could cause an infection.

"What, it's going to make me even more blind?" Tails joked, somewhat bitterly.

"No, it's going to cause an infection that will spread to the rest of your body and kill you. Now stay still." Amy delivered in a flat, deadpan voice. She was usually cheery, but when it came to treating people, she was very serious.

Tails wasn't sure if Amy was bluffing or not, but he did not want to challenge her statement. Even still, he couldn't really care less. His once bright, blue eyes that were full of life and hope were now grey, empty, and pointed towards two different directions at once.

He still hadn't gone out to buy a new cane yet, and he wasn't in the mood to build anything. So, he stuck with the umbrella. At least it was a good umbrella, at least according to Knuckles.

"That's made of really high-quality oak." Knuckles told him.

"How do you know that?" Tails asked, questioning his authenticity.

"I know my way around wood. What do you think I do in my spare time?" Knuckles answered smugly, crossing his arms together.

"I wouldn't be able to tell the difference if this was oak, gold, or just cheap plastic."

"You should. Gold is heavier than most things. And plastic feels cheap too."

"You know what I meant, Knuckles." Tails rolled his eyes. At least he could still do that.

Today, meanwhile, was a really nice day. Not much wind, not a cloud in the skies, and a warm sun beaming onto the ground at a moderate temperature. Tails had left the house for the first time since his incident. Sonic was with him, and it was he who convinced Tails to go out for a change.

"You could really use some fresh air. Staying indoors with only yourself to talk to can't be healthy, little guy." Sonic told him with sincere concern for his adoptive brother.

Tails responded with a simple, "I suppose so."

Tails wanted to fly, but he knew more than anyone that that was out of the question. So, he went for the next best thing: Standing on the edge of a really tall cliff. Luckily, Mystic Ruins had a beach near his home with a cliffside that had a steep face and a cave underneath. Sonic wasn't a fan of beaches, but he still needed to be there for Tails.

The cliff was an important place for Tails. This was where he used to fly around all the time, either in his plane, the Tornado-1, or just by simply using his tails. But obviously, that was no longer possible. He could easily lose track of his direction relative to land, he could fly upwards and not realize how high he was, and he could crash directly into the face of the cliff or a rock or something. And of course, all of those results were less than ideal. The closest experience to flying that Tails could enjoy right now was standing on the edge of a cliff and feel the strong, chilling wind blow around him, rushing through his warm, fuzzy fur and giving him a thrill he loved.

"Tails! Be careful!" Sonic yelled at his brother, who was currently standing on the edge of the cliff. Sonic didn't have a fear of heights; in fact, he was perfectly fine with some incredibly dangerous stunts high up in the air, but cliffs near the ocean were a different story. Being anywhere near water was a bad idea in Sonic's book.

Sonic looked around while his brother enjoyed the height, and noticed something he did not expect to see in Mystic Ruins: a giant blimp. And it didn't take a genius to realize who that belonged to.

"The Babylon Rogues." Sonic sighed, pinching his forehead in frustration. While Sonic and those pesky birds were not exactly enemies, rivals more than anything, and while they weren't on bad terms with each other, they weren't exactly people Sonic would invite to a 'friends only' gathering. And at the moment, Sonic really wasn't in the mood to explain why he was carrying Tails' umbrella and why the fox in question had derpy grey eyes.

"Well, let's just hope that it doesn't have to come to that." Sonic mumbled to himself, but let out a loud groan when he saw three specks down on the beach coming towards them. One green, one purple, and one fat.

Sonic whispered something that would have made Vanilla frown heavily, and spoke to Tails in a loud voice. It was difficult to hear anything this high up.

"Tails, we should get going now."

"What? We just got here, though!" Tails argued, turning around to face his older brother.

"I know, but we really need to go. We can come back next time, Tails." Sonic gripped Tails' wrist, trying to pull him away from the edge.

"You wanted me to come out of my house, and now you want me to go back in? What's that all about?" Tails pulled away, feeling angry at his brother.

"I'm really not in the mood to argue with you right now, Tails. Please, let's just go." Sonic said, tugging harder.

"Let go of me, Sonic!" Tails pulled back harder in return, but Sonic wasn't gripping onto him as hard as Tails thought he was. The sudden recoil made him stumble and fall backwards down the cliff.

A million thoughts rushed into Tails' head as he fell. One of them being one of the first conversations he ever had with Blaze.

"Blaze, is it true that cats always land on all fours?" He asked, with genuine curiosity.

"Yes, but only if we have enough time to turn around. Cats can twist themselves in the air due to our highly flexible backbones, but other animals can't."

Tails never found out if this was true or not, but here he was, falling down on his back, unable to turn the right way up. He knew enough about aerodynamics to know that flying with his propeller in a state like this would be impossible. He was going way too fast, he was upside down, and over all, he was in the least ideal state for flying. Theoretically, yes, he could fly upside down, but not like this. Bottom line was, Tails was doomed. How ironic that the fox most well-known for his ability to fly was going to die from falling.

However, all was saved when a certain purple swallow riding her extreme gear swoopedin to catch Tails.

"Hey shorty" Wave smirked, holding Tails in her arms. Tails blinked for a moment before he started laughing. Despite her rude and frankly mean remark, he was never happier to hear her snarky attitude. He hugged her tightly, wrapping his arms around her neck and burying his face in her shoulders.

"Thank you, Wave. I was done for." Tears flew out of his eyes and landed on her neck and shoulder. Wave was a bit shocked by Tails' affectionate reaction. She supposed that he would be grateful for her saving his life, but he was borderline cuddling her right now. She looked away from the fox, hoping that he didn't see her turn a bit red. Of course, he couldn't, but she didn't know that.

"Yeah, well, I can't let the second-best mechanic in all of Mobius die like that. Why didn't you use your tails?"

"I was falling with my back to the ground, Wave." He didn't need to explain any further. Wave was smart enough to understand what he meant. She was the best extreme gear mechanic in Mobius, after all. She probably knew as much as Tails when it came to aerodynamics. Possibly even more.

After Wave landed safely on the ground, she placed him on Tails' feet, then punched him on the shoulder playfully. "Don't try to kill yourself next time, okay?"

Tails nodded sarcastically and replied, "Yeah, I'll try my best."

Sonic hurried over to Tails, hugging him when he arrived. "Tails, I'm so sorry. I was so afraid that I might have... that I might have killed you."

Tails felt Sonic's warm grip around his back and his tears falling onto his fur. He gasped when he felt those tears. He had never seen Sonic cry before, but now, after he'd almost died, here they were.

"What were you two even doing up there?" Wave interrupted as Sonic let go of his younger brother. Sonic's eyes were a bit red from the tears, but he quickly wiped everything off. The last thing he needed right now was for Jet to see him crying.

"Tails just wanted to get some fresh air. I tried to pull him away but he recoiled and fell down the cliff." Sonic explained sheepishly, tugging on his arm and looking away. It was weird for Tails to hear Sonic speak like this. He was getting shyer and less cocky ever since the incident. Did he really have that much of an impact on his life? Of course, he did. He was Sonic's brother. Tails smiled a bit to himself, feeling glad that he had such good friends, but then immediately felt terrible that he was ruining their lives by being baggage to them.

Wave glanced over at Tails, and she got a good look at his face for the first time. "Why are his eyes like that?" She frowned, seeing both of them flinch at the question.

"Well, you see-" Sonic started off, but had difficulty finishing the sentence. Wave placed a hand on her waist and instead looked over at the fox. Tails continued the conversation for his brother.

"I lost my eyesight completely a couple days ago in an accident."

Wave frowned. She was expecting something like that, seeing how his eyes were literally pointing at two different directions at once, but expecting something and actually hearing the person say it out loud was a different thing. Wave looked over behind her, seeing her teammates riding over to the three.

She turned back at Tails, and said, "I have several questions, but I think those can wait for now. I don't want my insensitive friends barging in on your privacy." She ruffled Tails' hair and hopped on her own gear. "See you around, shorty. I'll come by your place soon."

Tails and Sonic blinked as they, well, Sonic watched her ride off and lure the other two birds away from the mammals.

"Well, that was strange." Tails commented, smiling as he spun his tails around. He wanted to see if he could still fly after that traumatic experience. Thankfully, he could, and he was now hovering about 2 feet above the ground.

"You okay there, buddy?" Sonic was understandably worried about his friend trying to fly so soon.

"Yeah, I just wanted to make sure I remembered how to fly. It's no biggy, Sonic. You don't have to treat me like a baby." Tails returned to the ground, but stumbled a bit before he landed on his butt. "Oops. Hehe."

"I think it's going to be a while before you can fly again, Tails. In the meantime, you should stay in your home for the next couple days. Another day like this and you're going to give me a heart attack." Sonic sighed, lifting Tails up onto his feet and handing him the umbrella. "Come on now. Let's go home. For real this time."


	4. A Script of an Adam Sandler Movie

After a near death experience like that, Tails really didn't want to go outside. Which was fine by Sonic. He didn't want Tails to get into any more accidents, and he definitely didn't want to be the cause of said accidents. So, Sonic left the little guy to his own devices. Literally.

Tails started learning the essentials for his new day-to-day activities now that he had a lot more time on his hands. He learned Braille, obviously. That was priority number 1 for anyone in his condition. Other than that, Tails tried to get used to walking in complete darkness. Even with his umbrella, though, walking was scary. He really wanted to function like an abled person, and the first step to that direction was to return to his engineering projects. It was incredibly difficult, more so since he had to redraw all of his blueprints onto a new, thicker sheet of paper that used bumps to indicate lines instead of simply drawing lines with a pencil.

Tails always felt a bit alone in the world, which was natural for someone as smart as him. But now, when he was completely separated from everyone else, he felt more alone than ever. His friends still stopped by every day. One day it was Amy, the next day it was Knuckles, and the other day Cream had dropped by to give him a new basket full of food. She was also the first to see his progress in blind engineering.

"See these bumps in the paper? They basically replace the drawings." Tails explained, showing Cream one of his blueprints.

"That's um—" Cream paused. She wasn't dumb, not by a long shot, but whenever Tails talked about a subject that he was passionate about, she felt so stupid in comparison. He had that effect on people. "That's...really interesting, Mr. Tails." Cream liked and respected Tails for his intelligence, but right now she could have been looking at a script of an Adam Sandler movie translated in Mandarin for all she knew.

Tails had always been a bit of a workaholic, but now he was working more than ever. But who could really blame him? He was stuck in his home with nothing but work to make his life easier.

He was currently touching the blueprint he'd made earlier that day. It was supposed to be a new engine he was working on for the Tornado-1 before all of this happened. But now, even he couldn't make out what it was supposed to be anymore. Writing things down in braille could only help him so much when he had to visualize every detail of a complex machine in his head. The problem with blind writing or drawing was that the braille was meant to display simple, intuitive information like shapes, a line, or a direction. Anything that was more complex than that was not suitable for his schematics. A machine running on thousands of parts had no chance at all.

Tails groaned loudly, gripping his hair and wanting to tear apart everything he'd made. Maybe he just needed a break. He got up and grabbed the umbrella leaning on his workbench. Then he walked over to the fridge and got some mint ice cream. He sat down on the couch and played a radio show that he could listen to while relaxing.

Podcasts, audio books, and radio shows were becoming an essential part of his day to day life as a source of entertainment. Reading was still fun, but finding braille books and actually having to read them were frustrating and soon became more of a chore than anything.

Just as Tails got comfortable, ready to leave the shape of his butt firmly imprinted on the couch as he listened to some old radio shows, the doorbell rang and interrupted his relaxation.

"God damnit!" He slammed the fancy silver spoon and the bowl of ice cream he had on his lap on the coffee table and stumbled his way to the front door. He didn't bother bringing his umbrella with him, instead using the bars installed on the walls as guides. Before he opened the door, however, he greeted his guest through the closed door in the most humane and polite way he could think of.

"Please state your name and purpose."

"Open the door, shorty robot." An equally friendly and hospitable voice greeted him back from the other side of the door.

"What do you want, Wave?" Tails recognized the voice and opened the door, frowning at the purple swallow.

"Wow, way to greet someone who literally saved your life." Wave placed both of her hands on her waist. "Come on. The others think I'm out buying groceries. I came here fully embracing the fact that Jet is going to yell at me for 'communicating with the enemy' or whatever."

"Alright, fine. Why are you here, Wave?" Tails' voice became a lot softer, but he still had a bit of an edge to his tone, not letting his guard down completely.

"I came here to help you, shorty. You're probably having issues dealing with your new condition, so let me in."

"I'm doing perfectly fine on my own. Why do you care? What do you even know about my situation?"

"More than you think. Just please let me in, Tails."

Tails rolled his eyes and fully opened the door to oblige. Wave walked in and was slightly surprised at how much he had already worked on the house to make it blind-friendly. Tails sat down on his couch again, scooping a spoonful of mint ice cream into his mouth. He seemed just a tad bit grumpy.

"You've actually done a pretty bang up job, shorty." Wave complimented. Sort of.

"Thank you for those warm words of encouragement, Wave." Tails answered sarcastically, rolling his eyes as he deadpanned.

"I swear you were really nice and cute back in the days. What happened?" Wave sat down next to Tails and took the spoon he was using. She then placed a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. "Ew, seriously? Mint?"

"Get your own spoon and give me that one back, Wave. That's disgusting." He complained, but he couldn't really do anything if she didn't give it back.

The two mechanics sat in silence as Tails tried to figure out what she wanted from him. His curiosity was thankfully fulfilled when Wave asked, "Can I go see your workshop?"

Tails was understandably a bit cautious answering this. On one hand, she did save his life and was being less hostile than usual. On the other hand, however, she was a thief, and in some ways, a competitor. Did he really trust her enough to show her his workshop?

"I may be a thief, but I don't steal from a blind fox, Tails. I don't stoop that low, seriously. What do you take me for?" It was like she read his mind.

"A thief." Tails got up, albeit hesitantly, and showed her to his workshop, anyway. As he was walking there, Wave noticed his pathetic excuse for a cane.

"Is that supposed to be your-"

"I know it's an umbrella. Shut up."

Wave snickered and entered after the two-tailed fox into his makeshift garage. This wasn't the first time she'd been in there, but they'd been too busy trying to stop Eggman to really talk about their professions in such an environment. The Tornado-1 was resting in the middle, severely damaged from the latest battle. It was the same battle that had left its owner blind. Tails sat down in front of the workbench and waited for the swallow to engage the conversation.

"Is that your new blueprint?" She walked over and studied the work in front of him as she sat on the edge of his desk.

"Er, yeah. I've been trying to work a way out so that I can-"

"Tails, this isn't going to work."

Tails flinched at how blunt she was. He always advocated for straight to the point advice instead of beating around the bush like Amy usually did, but this really took him off guard. He was feeling a bit angry at her now.

"What do you mean it won't work?"

"You can't display information this way. Not effectively at least. And definitely not the inner mechanisms of an uber complicated engine."

Wave was saying what Tails already knew. But sometimes, the truth told by someone else hurt more than he'd thought it would.

Tails' voice was harsh and dry. He was speaking out of fear, and not really thinking of what he was saying. "What do you know about this? What do you know about being blind? I'm trying my hardest to overcome this and you come in here and tell me-"

"I'm telling you that this isn't the way you will overcome this, Tails." Wave cut him off again and placed a hand over his own. "I don't doubt he fact that you will adjust, adapt, and become stronger. You're a prodigy. But this?" She looked down at the messy lines and random notes written in braille. "This isn't how you're going to do it."

"Then what do you suggest? That I just give up trying to make a blueprint? That I should just visualize everything in my mind?" Tails' grip on his umbrella was getting tighter as they spoke.

"Let me help you. Or hire someone who can help you, I don't care." There was a bit of a pause between those two sentences, as if she needed to improvise the latter half.

Tails was honest to Chaos taken back by this suggestion. The idea was tempting. He could really use the help right now, but...

"No. I don't want this—this thing!" He waved his hands around and in front of his eyes to indicate his condition. "I don't want this thing to win. I can be in control. I want to do this by myself." Tails wasn't known to be a prideful person. Unlike some of his friends, he wasn't afraid to ask for help from his friends. But this wasn't one of those times where he could stand doing that. He felt like he needed to win this war by himself. "Because if I start depending on others for a problem that's going to stay with me for the rest of my life, what good am I as a friend and a person if I just become baggage for others to deal with? I don't want my blindness to decide who I am. I will decide that for myself."

Tails expected her to say that he was choosing the harder path and that he was being a moron. But what did she know? She didn't have to go through blindness. She didn't need to overcome a massive barrier just to be on even footing with the others. She didn't need to spend hours of her life coming up with ridiculous solutions to problems that no one had to deal with, such as 'how do I read?'

But Wave didn't do any of that. She just got up from his desk and instead told him, "Suit yourself, shorty."

Tails blinked and stared blankly at the general direction she was in. "What?"

"You want to prove yourself. I understand. But you really don't need to carry all of this by yourself."

"It's not a matter of carrying all the luggage by myself. It's a matter of not-"

"It's about not wanting to feel dysfunctional. I understand, Tails. I really do." She messed with his hair again just like she had under the cliff. "I have to go. I'll c'ya around, okay? Call me if you ever need help with something mechanical."

And just like that, the swallow was gone. Tails stayed in his seat, thinking about what she had just said. She may have been unnecessarily blunt, but she knew how to explain what he felt in one word. Dysfunctional. Tails hated how that word sounded when used in relation with him.

"I'm not dysfunctional." Tails assured himself and got up to return to the couch. After he collapsed onto the cushions, he reached for the ice cream. He was getting a migraine and was really not in the mood for anything else at that point. He grabbed the bowl of slightly molten ice cream and noticed a piece of paper attached to it.

"What's this?" He mumbled to himself and ran his finger across it. There was something written in braille, but he hadn't placed it there. Did Wave leave it there? Did Wave know braille? And if so, how?

The paper read, "Thanks for the spoon."

Wait, spoon?

"God damnit. She took my spoon!"


	5. 100 days have gone by and still no title

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Cashlin Snow for editing this story. She's edited every single chapter up to this point and changed this story into the polished version you read today. Also, sorry for taking so long. I had to rewrite this whole thing three times.

"I wonder what they will think of me." Tails put on his coat as the weather was starting to get a bit chilly. It had been 3 weeks since the accident, and he was meeting some friends for the first time since.

"They'll think of you the same way they always have, but with a bit more sympathy." Knuckles answered, as he waited for Tails on the couch. Knuckles had agreed to take Tails to the city since Sonic and Amy were busy helping Big. Big of all people.

"I hope so. I don't want to be labeled as 'the blind kid'."

"I'm fine with labels. I don't get why some people don't like them. I'm 'the master of the Guardian Emerald who has a lot more free time now that the emerald is protected by actual security measures and not just one echidna who has to sleep 8 hours a day'."

"That's not really how labels work, Knuckles."

Tails had built a maximum level security system with several layers of protection, alarms, and defense mechanisms on the altar for the Master Emerald a few years ago. Honestly, he wasn't sure why they hadn't done that sooner. Knuckles was able to have a life outside the Emerald, because the security systems he'd created had been good enough to decrease Eggman's attempts at stealing the thing from once every 3 months to once every 6 months. And even then they mostly failed. Of course, this just led the Doctor into formulating more sinister plans that didn't revolve around the Master Emerald, but that was fine in Knuckles' book. Knuckles now lived near the outskirts of Mystic Ruins, away from most people. He'd also learned how to fly a plane from Sonic so he could get to Angel Island whenever he wanted to. Tails had given him one of the earlier models of the Tornado, modified to be suitable for personal, smaller, and simpler uses. The echidna was doing good for himself.

The same couldn't be said about Tails, though.

"Do my pupils look weird?" Tails turned to Knuckles and asked shyly. He was still self-conscious about his derpy, grey eyes.

Knuckles rolled his eyes and answered sarcastically. "Tails, they're grey and staring into two different dimensions just above my shoulders. Of course, they look weird. Come on, let's go."

Before Tails could comment on the echidnas' rather insensitive choice of words, Knuckles grabbed the fox's wrist and pulled hard. This startled him wildly, and caused Tails to flail around, almost hitting Knuckles with a nasty haymaker.

"What the hell, Tails?"

"I'm so sorry! But please, don't do that ever again."

"Do what again?" Knuckles was oblivious to the mistake he had made. In his mind, all he did was tell his friend to hurry up a little bit. Nothing wrong with that. Heck, if that was an issue, Sonic should have gone to jail by now. He really had no idea how much he scared the little guy.

"Knuckles, try closing your eyes." Tails suggested. The red echidna did as he was told, and Tails tugged on his arm quickly and harshly. Knuckles, not expecting that, stumbled forward, feeling a chill go up his spine.

Knuckles, feeling guilty of what he did, quickly apologized. "Woah, that was um, wow. I'm really sorry, Tails."

"It's okay. Just please don't do it again." Tails straightened his coat and headed out of his home with Knuckles behind him. He walked slowly, with much precaution, towards Mystic City.

A couple of years ago people from Station Square (Station Square? I couldn't find a reference to Central Square on the Sonic wiki) had started building a train station between the two areas. As a result, people started settling down near the station and, naturally, a city had formed. While most of Tails' friends already lived in Mystic Ruins, the more social folk like Amy, Cream, and Vanilla had moved to the outskirts of the newly built city. Oh, and Cream had brought along Cheese as usual.

Today wasn't about meeting Amy or Blaze, though. Today, Tails was going to see a friend he hadn't met in 2 months. Way before he went blind. And due to their bizarre and other worldly origins, he was hoping that they knew of a way to help his condition. Maybe even fix it.

The two entered the city about 20 minutes after their departure. If they were going Mach 1 the entire time, it would have taken them about 15 seconds. The only reason it didn't take them even longer was because Knuckles carried Tails 5 minutes after they'd started walking.

"Um, Tails? Do you know the way?" Knuckles clicked his tongue in irritation. He looked around the block, hoping to find a recognizable landmark.

"What do you think, Knuckles?" Tails frowned, crossing his arms.

"Right. Sorry."

Knuckles found the way by asking some random passerby. They then arrived at their friends' apartment. Recently, their friend lost her home in a devastating war. They were currently spending a lot of time with a certain naïve, white psychokinetic to either prepare for a counterattack, or watch silly rom-coms under a blanket together. The latter of which was denied by both parties involved. Since she was wanted dead, she stayed hidden in the city where she could be near her friends for help.

Knuckles knocked on the door and waited for the purple cat to open up. But instead, Blaze kicked the door open with enough force to make a large 'thwack' noise when it hit the wall, and she was ready to set ablaze to anyone who was there.

"Woah! It's me, Blaze!" Knuckles stumbled back and bumped into Tails.

"Oof. Knuckles, what's going on?" Tails wasn't expecting physical contact, and that made him drop his umbrella.

"Oh, my, I'm so sorry. I thought you two were going to attack us. We have reason to believe Eggman Nega sent some assassins to take care of us." Blaze got rid of the fireballs and leaned over to help Tails get on his feet. "I apologize. Silver and I have been very cautious lately, and we might act a bit paranoid from time to time. Our journey has been rough." She opened the door with her hand this time and respectfully let the guests in.

Silver was sleeping on the couch with a blanket half covering his stomach. He was snoring lightly, and he was clearly cuddling something, or someone, who wasn't there anymore. His quills were messy, he had a bit of bags under his eyes, and he looked very rough.

"I apologize for the mess. Silver and I haven't gotten the chance to clean up since our arrival." The two had been away for about 2 months so far, looking for a sol emerald. They'd returned yesterday, and were clearly exhausted from the journey.

"Silver, wake up." Blaze shook her friend, who slowly opened his eyes.

"5 more minutes, ma..." He closed his eyes again, covering his face with the blanket.

"He says this literally every time I wake him up. I met his mom! We look nothing alike! I'm seriously wondering if he's messing with me or not." Blaze half-rolled her eyes, smirking at the white hedgehog.

"Wake up." Knuckles punched Silver on the shoulders. Hard. That was enough to wake him up immediately.

"Ah! No! Daddy, Stop- Oh, it's you." Silver stretched his arms and yawned, rubbing his eyes to get the sleep off of them. "Why are you here?" He asked, until his head turned to Tails, who was currently looking towards a direction about 2 inches above Silver's head. "Oh. Well, hi, Tails. Are you doing... better?" Asking, "Are you okay?" would have been mean.

"Hi, Silver. And yes, I've been doing better." Tails smiled, waving his hand towards the wrong direction.

There was a ghastly silence between them. Lack of words or greetings to exchange. The entire room was filled with people who mostly kept to themselves, so striking up a conversation was difficult. However, Blaze decided to be a nice host and treat the guests with some drinks.

"Does anyone want something? We have tea, coffee, Dr. Pepper-"

"Oh, I'll set the kettle." Silver threw off his blanket and got to his feet. And then a pair of handcuffs fell from the couch.

Oblivious to the situation at hand, Tails asked without any concern for Blaze and Silver's blushing faces, "What was that? I heard some clanking chains? What is that?"

"It's nothing. Nothing happened." Silver kicked the cuffs underneath the couch and hurried to the kitchen.

Knuckles laughed, and tapped on Tails' shoulder. "Why don't you sit down? Here you go." He guided Tails across the room and sat him down on the couch Silver was sleeping on. Knuckles then sat down next to Tails, while Blaze relaxed on a recliner diagonal to Tails. Tails set the umbrella down on the floor, and Silver poked his head out from the kitchen.

"What did you guys want to get?"

"Do you have any grapes? Or grape juice?" Knuckles hoped that they did. His grape trees were doing badly this year.

"No, but we have some oranges."

It was clear Knuckles was disappointed by this turn of events."Good enough."

"What about you, Tails?" Silver glaced over to Tails, who looked up at the noise.

He answered nervously, as he was never comfortable with asking for something. "Um, I'll just have some tea if that's alright with you."

"And so will I, Silver. Thank you." Blaze added, smiling to herself.

Silver disappeared back into the kitchen, and Knuckles leaned his chin on one hand. "So, who was the one tied up?" He asked mischievously.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Knuckles." Blaze blushed softly and looked away.

"Guys, I need context here." Tails was very confused. He learned very quickly that being blind often left him out of jokes.

"It's nothing, Tails. The guardian is just being immature." Blaze glared at the guardian in question, frowning and folding her arms.

"Here you go, guys. Coffee for me, tea for Blaze and Tails, and some OJ for Knuckles." Silver squeezed himself in between Tails and Knuckles, and blew on his mug of coffee. It was because of this that Knuckles could see a red mark around Silver's wrists.

"You should really hide those marks with your gloves, Silver." Knuckles drank from his cup and smiled as he watched Silver realize his point and hide his hands between his legs.

"Anyway, as you guys probably know," Tails had given up on trying to figure out what the echidna was teasing Silver about and was just enjoying his tea. "I turned blind after a bad accident during a fight with Doctor Eggman."

"Right, we're so sorry to hear about your accident, Tails." Blaze told the fox sympathetically. One of her loyal followers were blind, and they lived an incredibly rough life.

"Thank you. I actually came here today to ask you guys something. Do you guys know a way to mitigate this? Specifically, how to fix it?"

Silver and Blaze glanced at each other then back at Tails. Silver spoke first. "I don't know about the Sol dimension, but in the future, we don't have a way to fix that, Tails." He hated being the bearer of bad news. His heart felt like it was getting torn apart seeing how heartbroken Tails was at this turn of events. "I'm sorry, Tails. Even in the future, we can't make blind men see."

Tails couldn't believe what he was hearing. Two hundred years into the future, and they still couldn't implant an artificial eye into someone? Was technology really developing that slowly? Tails hoped that Blaze had something to hope for, but that wasn't the case. Blaze's answer was no different.

"I'm sorry, Tails. The sol dimension's magic can't fix something as complex as an eye. And even if we could, there aren't any magicians alive after the war that could help you."

"But you guys are from a different world! A different timeline! How is 200 years not enough to create fake eyes?" Tails felt like he was about to cry. This was just unfair.

"Tails, I'm sorry. But I don't know what else I can tell you." Silver felt like shit. He wanted to help the little guy so badly, but he couldn't. In reality, the future had more than enough technology to fix Tails' eyes. But Silver was already bending more than enough laws to allow him to stay in the past. Bringing a future technology to the past would probably earn him a lifetime sentence at time jail.

Tails buried his face in his palms, crying silently into his gloves. Ever since Wave told him the harsh truth about the lack of polish in his work, he'd tried his hardest to find a way to prove her wrong. But he couldn't. No matter how much coffee he drank on his thinking desk, he couldn't think of a way to create a blueprint for blind people. He was hoping that maybe, just maybe, one of his friends from a different world could help him out. But they couldn't. And he was back to square 1. He was alone.

Silver fiddled his fingers around the mug and tried to change the subject. "Tails, do you want some tea? Maybe some fish? Big comes by every once in a while, and gifts us some of his catches." Tails didn't respond. Silver decided to excuse himself and went to the kitchen for some more coffee. Blaze leaned over and placed a hand on Tails' shoulder.

"Tails, it's going... it's going..." Blaze couldn't bring herself into saying something she had no faith in. Everything was not going to be fine. "It's going to get better, Tails."

Just then, the loud sound of glass breaking, followed by Silver's scream came from the kitchen.

"Silver?" Blaze got up from her seat and rushed to his side along with Knuckles. Tails followed soon after, but almost tripped when he tried to get there quickly. He wasn't familiar with the layout of this house and that made him more vulnerable.

"Silver! What happened?" Blaze knelt down next to Silver, who was currently on the floor, shocked. He shook his head wildly and recovered from his shock, then pushed Blaze down onto the floor.

"Quick! Get down! All of you!" Silver sounded more serious than he had ever been. He laid flat on the floor with Blaze beneath him, and Knuckles quickly followed suit, pulling Tails down with him.

"Sorry about that." Knuckles apologized, learning from his previous mistake.

"It's fine. Silver? What's going on?" Tails was prepared for some sort of physical contact this time, which made it easier for him.

Silver pulled out his hand and picked up a stray bullet that had made a dent in the wall. "This. We have a sniper outside our apartment. They know where we live, Blaze."

Tails perked his ears, and his namesakes started spinning around slowly. It was a habit that he had when he was racking his brain to its full capacity. Which was usually when he and his friends' lives were in danger. "We can go to my place for now. It's relatively safer, and we can find an area to hide you guys once we're there." Tails crawled over to Silver, or at least he thought he was. Instead, he bumped his head against the wall. "Ow! Damnit! Anyways, once we get to my place, we can find somewhere safer. To be honest, I'm surprised you guys were able to stay here for so long without getting caught."

"We thought hiding in plain sight might work. It did, for our benefit, at least for a couple months." Blaze answered, tapping on Tails' arm to let him know where she was.

"Right. Maybe you guys could stay at Angel Island for the time being?" Tails suggested, earning a frown from Knuckles.

"We can worry about the specifics later. Right now, we need to focus on getting to your house safely." Silver put up a psychokinetic shield across the window, and got to his feet. "We can come back for our things later. If they're still here that is. Let's go."

Blaze stood up as well, still keeping a low profile just in case. Knuckles glanced at Tails, who was very tense. It was the literal worst time to be a burden to his friends, and he was being one at this very moment.

"Tails, I'm going to lift you up and carry you in my arms. Try not to move too much, alright?" Knuckles did as he said, carrying the little guy before leaving the building. The three of them ran quickly, but not so fast that they would be noticed. They were able to get out of the city without gathering much attention, and that's when they started running as fast as they could. Trying to be stealthy outside the city, where it was nothing but flat, open fields was a terrible idea. Silver kept up a force field around them, hoping that his powers were enough to keep them safe. Thankfully, they didn't need to find out whether that was the case or not, since they didn't get attacked.

When they arrived at Tails' place, they ran in, shut the door, and collapsed on the floor in relief. Well, Knuckles placed Tails down on a couch before he collapsed. Tails groaned, grabbing his leg and squeezing it. He'd gotten leg cramps on the way, partly because of the tension, but mostly because Knuckles had been holding him in an uncomfortable way.

"Alright, guys. I think... I think that's enough for now." Blaze let out a huge sigh of relief, and looked around. "Tails, do you have somewhere we could maybe stay for tonight? I apologize for being a burden to you, but-"

"No, no, it's okay. I have a guest room, though I only have one bed. Silver, you can take the couch I suppose." Tails answered, getting on his feet and grabbing his umbrella. He went to his room to get an extra pillow and blanket for Silver.

"Gee, thanks, Tails." Silver answered sarcastically, but he was thankful nonetheless. He lay down on his bed for the day, and placed a hand over his eyes, wanting to take a nap. He'd used too much of his powers keeping up a barrier for that long.

"Well, since you have two more friends here, I think I can go now. I'll see you around, Tails." Knuckles turned to head home, but as soon as he looked out the window, he remembered what position they were in. "On second thought, I'll stay here for a little bit."

"Yes, that may be the right idea." Blaze sat down on the couch next to Silver, petting his quills.

Tails soon returned as well with a new pillow and blanket, and the gang was huddled around the couch. It was nice and homey now, and everyone felt safe.

"Silver, were those handcuffs that you dropped earlier?"

"Were you thinking about that this whole time?"


	6. But are you SURE foxes can echolocate?

"You guys know I have really good hearing now that I am blind, right?" Tails startled the hedgehog and the cat, who were on his couch doing...something. Tails wasn't sure what they were doing, but he could hear a lot of physical contact happening. "Also, it's morally questionable for you two to act like I'm not here just because I'm blind."

Tails had been mucking about in his workshop just a few minutes ago, but he'd come out to refill his canteen of coffee. However, on his way to the kitchen, he'd heard a lot of clothes ruffling and couch cushions shuffling. Gross. He was now really tempted to throw away that couch as soon as they left.

On the bright side, he did hear them stop moving around so much when he pointed out what he thought they were doing, but he didn't hear either of them get up.

Tails rolled his eyes and smirked, placing his cup down in the coffee machine. "Well, since you two can't keep your hands off of each other, you're going to need an adult to supervise you. Silver, why don't you come to help me in the workshop?"

Tails heard a sigh, most likely from Silver, and then someone getting up and walking towards him.

"What do you need, buddy?" He asked, rubbing his forehead.

"I appreciate your enthusiasm, buddy, but it'll have to wait until we actually _get_ to the workshop." Tails flashed Silver a shit eating grin, and gleefully strolled his way to his garage. Silver followed, grumbling some very harsh expletives under his breath.

Inside Tails' shed, Silver could see the fox's most prized possession: the Tornado-01. It was still wrecked, but it had been weeks since the biplane broke down, along with its owner. However, Tails was no closer to fixing it as he was 3 weeks ago. What was even worse was that on Tails' workbench lay Tails' pet robotic dog. T-pup was also deactivated and had been stuck on the desk for weeks at this point.

Tails sat in his chair, twiddling his fingers. He tilted his head over to T-pup as if he could see the state that his poor dog was in.

"What's up, buddy?" Silver asked again, sitting on the edge of Tails' workbench, trying not to ruin anything on the desk.

"Well, I've been trying to get T-pup up and running for weeks now. T-pup is supposed to be my simplest machine too. It just...does something to your psyche." Tails let out a long sigh, tapping his fingers on the hard, wooden desk.

Silver thought for a moment, before speaking with a certain determined tone. "Well, Tails, I don't know anything about technology, but all of this seems just too difficult for you."

"I know. I probably wrecked poor T-pup here more than I fixed him." He pet his poor dog, rubbing the top of his head. Surprisingly enough, Tails had made progress on T-pup. It wasn't huge, but it was more than he thought.

"Well, how about I look at him?" Silver offered, pulling a stool over with his powers and sitting down next to Tails.

"I mean, you can. But what do you know about mechanical engineering?" Tails moved his chair over so that Silver could sit in the middle, instead of to the side.

"Not much. But I have experience working with tools, so you can tell me what to do. Then, I'll tell you what's going on. Not necessarily in that order." Silver took a look inside T-pup's body, and it was already more complicated than anything he'd ever fixed before. And this was coming from a person who'd come from the future.

Tails shrugged, giving into the idea in the end. "Well, I'm not sure how well information can be exchanged between us, but I guess we can give it a try. Do you see a small box inside T-pup?"

"The one in the middle?"

"Yeah. Grab a Pozidriv screwdriver and take the screws out."

"Um..." Silver stared at the rack of screwdrivers, each one looking slightly different from the other.

"Third one to the right, if they're in order." Tails smirked, leaning his head on one hand.

This went on for a while, Tails trying to guide him to the correct tool every time he used a term Silver, and frankly, anyone in a 10-mile radius didn't know. Then, Silver would do as he was told, and, surprisingly, he did a good job. Silver proved to be an effective pair of eyes for the little fox, and by the time they needed a break, the duo had made more progress than Tails had by himself for the last few weeks.

"Well, I guess it's better late than never to find out you have a method now, huh?" Silver said, feeling somewhat good for himself.

"Well, Wave did tell me to do this exact thing, so I only have my ego to blame." Tails blew some hair out of his face and bit his lower lip, diving deeper into his thoughts. "Sonic and Knuckles aren't exactly careful enough with complicated tools to do a task like this, so I don't think I could have asked anyone else, Silver." Tails wasn't happy with this excuse and Silver noticed. However, Silver did have bad news.

"Well, here's the problem, Tails. I can't stay by your side and be your eyes for the rest of my life. Blaze and I have work to do."

"Yeah, I know." Tails spun his chair around. His head was filled with unwanted thoughts now, and he needed to clear his mind one way or another. "Maybe Cream could help me? I mean, she's good with her hands but she's not really into engineering. Wave is...I'm not sure if I want to ask Wave for help. Is there anyone who is a suitable helper?"

"Well, you better start looking if you want to get work done now, Tails." Silver stopped Tails' chair from spinning. It was making him dizzy just from watching.

"That's the thing though. Do I want help? Isn't this just a temporary solution to a permanent problem? My blindness isn't going anywhere, so wouldn't it be better to get slowly better at doing this by myself?" Tails crossed his arms, somewhat upset by Silver's resistance to his methods of clearing his brain.

"That's something for you to figure out by yourself, buddy. Personally, I just don't see anyone, even a brilliant genius like you, being able to perform complicated engineering all by himself with a blindfold over his eyes."

Silver glanced over to the entrance of the workshop and saw a purple cat waiting for the both of them.

"Silver, Tails." She said, leaning on the doorframe. "I made lunch. Ham and cheese sandwiches."

"I didn't know we had ham." Tails pondered, getting up from his chair.

"We don't. Your mailman happens to be a boar."

There was a terrible ghastly silence.

"I'm joking. I ordered some food on the internet. It arrived in this Styrofoam box with dry ice." Blaze rolled her eyes. Chaosians couldn't take a dark joke the way Solians did.

Mobians evolved so far away from normal animals that they were barely related anymore. No one minded eating an animal unless they were the same kind. For example, the mailman from earlier would have politely declined Blaze's tasty sandwich. So, in the end, it was more of a cultural thing than anything. And even then, some people ignored that and ate all types of food, anyway.

While everyone was having a nice meal together, Blaze suggested something that never occurred to Tails. "Tails, why don't you try learning echolocation?"

"Echolocation?" Tails stopped eating for a moment to listen to what Blaze had to say.

"Yes. Echolocation. I'm sure Rouge wouldn't mind lending her time to help you. While its usage in your engineering is questionable at best, I'm sure it would help you tremendously in your normal day to day activities. You might even be able to fly again."

Tails fell into a state of deep thought as he considered this. He knew robotic eyes were not possible, so developing a method to 'see' in a way that a couple of unique animals managed to do was a good idea.

However, Silver was the one to pour cold water on the suggestion. "Can foxes even learn echolocation?"

Blaze glared at her friend, but Tails couldn't see that.

Tails answered instead, somewhat defensively. "Well, Foxes aren't known for their ability to fly."

"But that's chaos energy, isn't it? The same way Sonic's super speed and Amy's Piko Piko hammer uses chaos energy and Blaze uses Sol energy. Using echolocation seems like a completely different-OW!"

Blaze kicked Silver's leg under the table to make him shut up.

"What Silver is _trying_ to say is," Blaze shot him a look of warning. "That you should consider this with a grain of salt. It might work, but of course, there's always the possibility that it might be a huge waste of time."

"That wasn't what I was trying to say-Ow!"

Tails could smell some hair burning from beneath the table, along with some slight sizzling noises.

"I swear to Sol, Silver... Anyway, if you need help going to Station Square and meeting Rouge, I can take you there myself."

"Sorry, Blaze. You need to stay here for the time being. I understand that you want to go out and stretch your legs for a bit, but it's just way too dangerous." Tails finished his sandwich and wiped his face with a napkin. "I'm going to ask Sonic. He should be home by now. You guys know how to access the bunker, right? I don't want to come back only to find my house in the rubble."

Blaze sighed but agreed with the fox. "Yes, it's inside your closet in the master bedroom. And we will make sure not to fight anyone for as long as we can."

"Excellent. And please don't use my bed while I'm away." Tails left the two blushing mammals to themselves while he went to his room and grabbed his phone. He never took his phone to his workshop, as it proved to be a distraction most of the time. Of course, there wasn't much it could do to distract him nowadays, but it was something he still did to keep a sense of normality.

He dialed the number for his brother and heard the cheerful voice of the blue hedgehog come from the other side. "Hey, buddy, what's up?"

"Hey, Sonic, can you take me to Station Square? I need to go see Rouge."

"Rouge? Why? Did Knuckles ask you to deliver something for him?" Ah, Sonic. Always the joker.

"No, I just need to ask for a favor. Are you free?"

Unfortunately for Tails, he wasn't. "Sorry, little bro. I need to help Big find Froggy. Again."

"Again? Weren't you doing that yesterday?" Tails groaned, trying to think of anyone else who could take him instead. He ran his hand through his hair in frustration.

"Well, I did promise to help him the next 5 times he, uh, needs help." Something about this seemed fishy to Tails.

"Nicky," Tails said in a serious voice. "You better not be lying to me."

There was a short bit of silence before Sonic answered. He was very clearly shook from hearing his name for the first time in probably years. "Of course not! Uh, don't you have someone over?"

Tails knew he was trying to change the subject, but he let it slide. "Well, I have Silver and Blaze here, but they can't really leave for the time being."

"Oh, do they make a lot of noise at night?"

Tails could hear him snickering from the other side. "I find it really uncomfortable how you guys are so open to talking about sex near me. I'm 16." He deadpanned, and there was another silence, this time much more awkward.

"Well, you're still of legal age in this country. Anyway, gotta go, Tails!"

Before Tails could reply, the dial tone came from the speaker. He sighed and placed his phone down on his bedside table. He ran a hand through his messy hair again, blowing some of it out of his face. Keeping his fur tidy was already difficult. Doing it blind was near impossible.

Tails ran his hand through his list of contacts. Sonic was the one who'd read every number out to him while he'd written them down on a long list in braille. There were names next to all the numbers, but there were also cute little drawings that represented each person: a flower for Amy, rabbit ears for Vanilla, and an emerald for Knuckles. He remembered Sonic's first interaction with heavy paper. Sonic didn't know braille, so he just drew cute drawings that made bumps for Tails to feel.

At the end of the long list, however, was a number that did not have a drawing next to it. This was a fairly recent addition, and that's why Sonic hadn't drawn anything next to it. The number belonged to Wave.

After careful consideration, Tails decided that it couldn't go that bad, and dialed the swallow's number. He slowly spun his tails while he waited for Wave to pick up, and to his surprise, she did.

"Hello, there, Wave speaking."

"Hey, Wave. It's me. Tails." He twirled his tails around a bit faster, lifting him up about 5 inches from the ground. He was nervous and paranoid that this was not the right decision.

"Oh, hey there, shorty. Why did you call?"

"I need someone to take me to Station Square. All my usual friends are busy, so..." Tails hoped that Wave would, at the very least, not make fun of him. Which was, of course, exactly what she did.

"Aww, does wittle Tails need a babysitter?" She even said 'wittle' instead of 'little'.

Tails shuddered. "Yes, wittle Miles needs a babysitter to take him outside. Can you come to pick me up?" Dignity was no longer a factor.

"Wait, who's Miles?" Wave asked, and Tails slapped his forehead. Wave didn't know his real name.

"Um...me. My name is Miles." Tails gripped his forehead and sighed. He did not want this to be the way how anyone found out his name.

"That's your name? I just thought your parents hated you." Oh, the irony of that statement.

"They do." Tails mumbled but quickly moved on. "Anyway, are you free? Can you come to pick me up-"

"Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Does Sonic have a 'real' name? What about Knuckles?" Wave interrupted Tails. She wasn't rolling on the floor, but she was laughing to her heart's content.

"No. Knuckles is his real name...Sonic's real name is um...Nicky. Nicky Parlouzer." Tails felt bad for selling out his brother.

Wave seemed fairly surprised at the revelation, but it wasn't as big of a shock as expected. "Nicky? That's actually pretty close to Sonic. I guess that's where he got the idea. Anyway, I'm in front of your house."

"Oh, um...I'll be out in 5 minutes." Tails put the phone down, confused. He grabbed the backpack that he always kept in his room in case he needed to travel some distance away, and went downstairs.

"I'm heading out, guys. C'ya." He picked up his umbrella by the door and heard the familiar, quiet engine noise of Wave's extreme gear.

"Hey, shorty, you think you can hang onto me while I ride at moderately slow speeds?" Wave got off her board and placed it in front of Tails.

"Yeah. I'll probably have a death grip on you, though." He waited for Wave to get on so he could hop on behind her and wrap his arms around her waist.

"Well, I suppose getting fondled by a horny teen isn't the worst way to spend your afternoon." Wave smirked, and started up her gear, going at a fairly safe speed.

"I turn 17 in a few weeks, Wave. I can control my hormones." Tails rolled his eyes at her snarky remark.

"Really? I thought you were 13 or something." Wave blushed a bit when his hold on her tightened but acted like nothing was out of the ordinary.

"Wave, that implies we met when I was 5." Well, he did meet Sonic when he was 4, so that wasn't completely outlandish.

"Man, I remember when we first met. I immediately trash talked your gear. It honestly wasn't half bad, considering it was your first ever gear. I was immature though, being only 12 and all that."

"You still trash talk, Wave. Also, you were 12? I thought you were, like, 15! Wait a minute, how old are you?"

Wave made a sharp turn to avoid a tree, and that made Tails grip her even tighter. "Hey! Don't grab me so hard. Anyway, I'm 20. It was my birthday about a month ago."

Tails loosened himself for now but his focus was on her age. "You're 20? I thought you were, like, 23! You're as young as Amy?"

"I don't know. Am I? Either way, I'm 20. And it's fine. A lot of people think I'm older than I actually am."

"I think it's because you act a lot older in addition to looking a bit more mature. Well, you did when you were a teenager. I'm not so sure anymore, since not much is different from a 20-year-old and 23-year-old, but whatever."

"I guess so. Oh, I see Mystic City up ahead. Expect to arrive in... now." She stopped suddenly, causing Tails to lunge forwards, then backward, and fall on his butt. Thankfully, his soft tails prevented much damage.

"Jerk..." He muttered, getting up and searching for his umbrella.

They headed towards the train station and caught one leaving for Station Square. Inside the train, Tails was recognized multiple times by longtime residents of Mystic City. Thankfully, most of them had heard the news by now of his unfortunate accident, so they didn't bother asking why he was carrying an umbrella with him when there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

"You really should get a proper cane, though." Was Wave's response when he told her this. She was leaning her elbow against the window frame inside the train, with her head resting on her palm. She was looking out the window but turned to face Tails when he started talking to her.

"I don't know. I kind of like this thing. I think I'm getting attached. I might even modify it later to turn this into a proper cane. When I start engineering again, of course."

" _If_ you start engineering again, Tails. We don't know if you can do anything in your current status. And I assume you still haven't found anyone to assist you?" Wave smirked, petting the little guy's head.

Tails growled but sat still. He didn't feel like answering that question.

Wave, however, kept on going. "Why are you going to Station Square, by the way? I forgot to ask earlier."

"We're going to see Rouge. You know Rouge, right?"

"The hot bat chick who steals gems? Goes around with that big robot and the black hedgehog? I've met her a few times before, yeah. What about her?"

"I'm going to ask her if she can teach me echolocation. I think it would be really helpful in my day to day activities. Maybe I can start flying again. Who knows?"

"Can foxes even learn echolocation?"

Tails shuddered when Wave said that, feeling a great deal of Déjà vu at that moment.

"I guess there's only one way to find out. I'm just being cautiously optimistic." Tails answered honestly. He was, too. He had no idea if he was even able to perform such a rare ability.

"I like that. Being cautiously optimistic. Although I'm more of a negative gal myself. Being negative always leaves you right or pleasantly surprised."

"But you're never happy."

"Worth it." And that was the end of that.

They stayed silent for the rest of the ride until they finally arrived at Station Square. Wave tapped on Tails' hand and then grabbed it, guiding him out of the train and through the station. Station Square was a big city and had a lot of people, so it was easy for Wave to lose Tails if she wasn't careful. They arrived at a place that was less hectic so that Tails could prepare himself. He started taking things out of his backpack.

"You know how to take care of a blind person really well." Tails said offhandedly. He wasn't challenging her or questioning her. Just acknowledging a fact.

"Yeah, well- What the fuck is that?" Wave's train of thought was interrupted when Tails pulled out a pair of aviator sunglasses and placed them over his eyes. It also read 'Party BOI' on the lenses.

"It's my sunglasses. I don't want anyone to recognize me and ask questions about the weather. Besides, blind people wear shades to protect their eyes and to alert passing people of their lack of sight." Tails looked ridiculous in those shades. The glasses themselves were fine, but the 'Party BOI' ruined everything. Too bad. They looked expensive, too.

"Tails, I don't think you know this, but your sunglasses have Party Boi written across the lenses."

There was a moment of silence as the two tailed fox took the information in.

"I swear to Chaos if Knuckles did this while drunk..." He stuffed the shades back into his backpack, mumbling expletives towards the echidna.

"Why do you even have a pair of sunglasses?" Wave laughed, placing her gear down and sitting on top of it with her legs crossed, waiting for Tails to finish what he was doing.

"I bought them when I was 6 along with my Mercedes. I wanted to be cool like Sonic." He swung them around on his index finger, not caring what happened to them now.

"Wait, hold up. You had enough money to buy a Mercedes? How on Mobius did you get all that cash at the age of 6?" This took Wave completely by surprise. And to be honest, she had a hard time buying it. A pair of sunglasses, sure, but a Mercedes?

"I had a tool shop that Sonic made for me. Well, to be completely honest, the tool shop itself did okay, but the real money was from the patents I licensed."

"So, you bought a Mercedes at the age of 6 off the patent money you got," Wave asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, it's a cool sports car. It's slim, black, something like 300 horsepower. I still have it. I just didn't find a need to drive it when I had my Tornado-1." Tails shrugged, hanging his bag over his shoulder. "Let's go. The G.U.N. headquarters are quite a bit of distance away from here."

Tails left a stunned Wave behind, not noticing that he was walking in the opposite direction.


	7. I'm way to wrecked for this shit

"What do you miss doing the most?" Wave asked, tilting her head to the side.

They were currently in a cafe waiting for Rouge. Rouge had a lot of work to do, and since Tails and Wave were civilians, they couldn't enter G.U.N. headquarters. So, they just decided to wait for her to come out from the cafe nearby. Rouge lived near the headquarters anyways, so it all worked out fine. Wave thought it would be nice to pass the time by asking each other questions and getting to know each other better.

"Flying. Without a doubt." Tails sipped on his mug of mint-flavored hot chocolate. "Engineering is fun and all, but the feeling of the cool air flowing next to you is just breathtaking."

"What do you prefer flying with, your tails or your plane?"

The question caught Tails off guard. It was something he hadn't ever considered, but the answer wasn't difficult to come up with.

"My plane. As convenient as my tails are, they get tired easily, and are used more as a 'let me go there' or 'get me out of here' tool rather than something for me to rely on to cover great distances."

"I should learn how to fly a plane. A small one like yours. Seems like fun" Wave sipped her own hot chocolate. This café served a mean hot chocolate, and Wave wasn't one to deny such sweet goodies. "Still, I think you shouldn't be too disappointed if it doesn't work out, Tails."

"I mean, sure. But how could it not work out? Look at how big my ears are!"

Wave raised her eyebrows, noticing how much more hopeful Tails had become as time grew closer to the meeting. She really hoped that the enthusiasm wasn't misplaced.

Tails enjoyed the quiet atmosphere of the cozy café, drinking his hot chocolate and feeling at peace with himself for the first time in weeks until Wave broke it for him.

"You know, I bet you could flirt a girl into sleeping with you with those big, bushy, cuddly tails."

Tails, stunned, pointed at himself to check if she was talking about him. and not someone else he couldn't see.

"Yes, you. You and the two pillows that you always carry around." Wave smiled. She liked making Tails uncomfortable and she loved seeing him squirm like this. It amused her to no end.

"W-what? A-are you trying to tell me something? Am I missing something here?" He shifted in his seat, letting Wave know she succeeded in what she hoped for.

"I mean, look at them! They're so fluffy!"

"Are girls into those sorts of things? I don't-" Before he could finish his sentence, Wave cut him off.

"Never mind. Look, here she comes."

"...Is this some sick joke?"

"Right. Sorry."

Outside, Wave could see an attractive white bat walking towards the café they were in. She entered and looked around, spotting the duo and waving at...well, she meant to wave at Tails, but the only Wave could see it. She sat down next to the swallow and smiled as she greeted him politely.

"Hello, Tails. Wonderful weather we're having today."

"You know I can't see it, right?" Tails frowned, getting real tired of this shit.

The bat chuckled to herself. "I know. It's a joke, sweetie. And hello, I don't believe we've met before?" Rouge turned to Wave and lent out her hand for her to shake.

"Oh, yes. I mean, we have, but not during our free time. My name's Wave. I'm a mechanic and a friend of Tails."

Tails scoffed at the last bit, rolling his eyes. Wave returned the gesture, to both Tails and Rouge.

"Pleasure to meet you. My name's Rouge, but I'm sure Tails already told you that. Speaking of which, why did you ask me to come to meet you here?"

Tails felt his namesakes coil and twist with each other, an old habit he had when he was nervous. "Rouge, you can echolocate, right?"

Tails couldn't see it, but Rouge's face showed all sorts of emotions in that brief moment. Confusion, realization, sadness, and finally pity. "Yes. It's a natural gift that most bats have, but..."

Wave noticed how hesitant the bat was. It was a strange sight, as the few times Wave had seen her, Rouge just oozed nothing but confidence.

"Well, I want to learn it. I figure that it would help me in my current condition considering that it's a very...difficult one."

"Honey, I understand what you want. I really do, but you're not going to be finding it from me."

And with that, Tails' world crushed around him once more. He should have been used to this by now, but it never became stale, the feeling of the world crumbling around one as all hope that one once had just evaporated. "W-why not? What's the issue here?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't know how to teach you what I do. I make sounds and I just *know* how far they are when they come back."

It was rare for Tails to be so upset or mad at something, but here he was, angry. What was he even angry at? Fate? The universe for giving him the middle finger? Himself for being a blind son of a bitch? It didn't matter. He was furious.

"Can't you at least teach me how it works or how-"

"Tails, sugar." Rouge cut him off, feeling awful for the little fox. "Can you teach me how you raise your arm?"

Tails understood what she meant, and sighed. He felt drops of tears dampening his cheeks. Every time he thought he had a solution, reality hit him like a ton of bricks.

"I know how it works in theory, but you and I both know that that's not enough." Rouge continued, "It's instinctual for someone like me. I _understand_ that I emit sound waves through my voice box and that it bounces off the target to inform me how far it is, but I don't actively think of what I'm doing like that. Millions of years of evolution taught me to calculate the density, size, and speed of what I'm locating, but it never taught me _how_ I'm doing it."

Tails banged his head against the table, startling Wave, who was patiently listening to what she had already expected but dreaded all the same. After injuring his forehead, Tails just remained like that, slumped.

Rouge sighed, wishing there was anything she could do to help the poor kid. Her phone rang, letting her know that Shadow was looking for her. It was probably nothing. Shadow often got antsy when he was alone for too long, despite what his 'lone wolf' image might tell people. "Honey, I hate to break it to you, but Shadow needs me. I'll pay for your drinks."

Tails responded with a grunt, getting another sigh from Rouge. She turned to Wave and said, "Please take good care of him. I trust that you will, but...he needs it. More than you probably realize."

Wave nodded slowly, keeping her eyes on the fox. Rouge walked out of the cafe after paying for the duo's hot chocolates.

Wave and Tails stayed at the cafe for a bit longer. Tails couldn't feel the motivation to move after that, so he stayed like he was, head on the table. Wave sat in awkward silence before moving next to Tails and lifting his head up for him. He looked awful. His eyes were puffy, his bangs were flattened, and he was radiating depression. Wave sighed and grabbed some tissues to wipe off his tears and fix his hair.

"Come on, Tails. Let's go." She got up once more, holding Tails' wrists as she stood.

Tails grabbed his umbrella, following her like a limp ragdoll. This caused him to bump into all sorts of things as a result.

"All right, Tails, I'm going to need you to straighten up." Wave stopped as she turned a corner, still holding onto the depressed fox. Tails didn't say anything, but at least his head didn't look like it was going to roll off his neck.

"Tails, I told you to not be so disappointed." Wave knew how uncomforting that sounded right now, but she figured someone had to say it.

The two tailed fox just sighed, hanging his head once more. Wave wasn't about any of this so she placed her board down, lifted him up off his legs and into her arms, much like how a newlywed husband would do for his wife. Tails, realizing his immediate safety was in jeopardy, woke up from his trance and instinctively grabbed Wave by the neck, hanging on for dear life.

"Tails, I'm not going to drop you. Relax." Wave got on her gear and started riding while carrying him with relative ease. Tails noticed how slow she was going. She couldn't have been going faster than a casual bike ride through a park.

He relaxed, leaning on her shoulder and thinking of what to do now. He felt like nothing really mattered in the end. Silver and Blaze couldn't help, and neither could Rouge. He could try to learn from someone who actually understood how the whole echolocation thing worked and could teach it, but he had no clue who could do something like that, or if it was even possible. He didn't even know anyone else who could echolocate. He recalled that Sonic had a dolphin friend, but he didn't know her all that well and if Rouge was anything to go off of, it meant that most folks relied on instincts to use echolocation. The whole idea was just getting more and more complicated the longer he thought about it.

"Tails, I'm going to need you to walk from here."

Tails snapped out of his deep thought and nodded. Wave placed him down and the two got on the train ride home. Neither felt like it was an appropriate time to talk, but Wave still wanted to comfort the little guy. Just a little bit.

"I mean, like, it's not like echolocation could help that much in our profession, right?" Wave's idea of comfort was to reassure how wrong they were. It was something she picked up from Jet and Storm, and while that normally would have worked with them, it just came off as cold and uncaring to Tails.

' _Gee, thanks Wave,'_ thought Tails.

"Echolocation can't...you know. Help that much, right? All the parts are so small, everything we do is so delicate..."

Tails didn't say anything. He just sat there, keeping a blank face. Wave couldn't read it at all, and that made her very uncomfortable. She wasn't used to seeing the fox so devoid of emotion since every previous interaction had been quite the opposite.

"And I know you wanted to fly, but since you're in a plane, you probably can't hear anything. How would you echolocate? All I hear is the wind whooshing by and-"

"Wave, can you please **shut up**?"

That did the trick. Wave sat still and looked away. Thankfully, the train car was empty, but that somehow only added to the loneliness. After what felt like years, the train stopped and it was time to get off. Wave guided Tails off the train one last time and got on her gear with him behind her. When they arrived in front of Tails' home, neither had spoken a word the entire time.

"Tails, you're home."

Tails released his grip on her waist and hopped off.

"Thanks, Wave." He muttered, picking up his umbrella and taking a step towards his front door.

Wave was about to leave when Tails said, "And I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier. That was rude of me. I know you just wanted to help"

Wave turned around; a bit surprised. The times she'd spent with the Babylon Rogues was not the most formal, but she couldn't recall the last time either Jet or Storm apologized to her. Maybe a passing 'sorry' if they bumped into each other, but that was about it.

One time, Jet and Storm accidentally wrecked her workshop, and that led to all three of them screaming at each other and quickly escalated into a full-scale fight. None of them apologized for what happened that day, and they all went by with their daily activities as if nothing happened.

Wave cleared her throat, feeling a bit worked up inside her. "Right. I'm sorry. I... yeah." She wasn't used to this.

"Yeah." Tails smirked, shoving one hand in his pocket, with the other gripping his umbrella. He'd clearly caught the swallow off guard with his comment.

"I'll see you around." Wave rode away.

Tails stood there for a bit longer, tapping his umbrella against the ground. He heard the sound come from the ground, but he couldn't tell if there was a barn in front of him or not. Tails sighed, opened his front door, walked in, and hung his umbrella beside the door...but the hook he hung his umbrella on wasn't there. Tails felt a terrible chill run up his spine.

"Silver? Blaze?" He yelled out, reaching for the bars he had around his house. He no longer felt safe here, knowing that this was not the house he remembered. He was now a stranger in his own home. Hands against the wall, he took a step forward. He didn't hear any noise come from the inside so that either meant that Blaze and Silver were gone or they went into the bunker. He hoped to Chaos it was the latter.

Just then, he heard a loud metallic creak and two pairs of feet hurrying towards him. He just wished that the footsteps belong to who he was thinking of. His hope was confirmed to be true when he heard his friends yell out his name.

"Tails!" Silver and Blaze shouted, relaxing Tails' strained heart and making him collapse to the ground when his leg gave out.

"Guys, what happened? Where did my hook go?" Tails leaned on the bars for support.

"Hook?" Silver tilted his head, having no idea what Tails was even talking about.

"The hook where I hang my umbrella. It's supposed to be over there." Tails pointed towards his front door as if that was any help.

"Huh, I guess you would have notice that before your wrecked furniture." Silver rubbed his chin.

"My what? What happened while I was gone?" Tails paid good money for those couches, money he could have spent tuning his Mercedes.

"Well, to make a long story short, it was the Hooligans," said Blaze. "Apparently, it was Fang who tried to shoot Silver back then. We have no idea how they found us here, but we hid the bunker like you told us to. They trashed your place looking for a secret entrance or something, I guess. I don't know how, but one of them just completely ignored the vault door in your bedroom." She shrugged, giving Tails a light migraine.

"It was Bean, wasn't it? The crazy idiot. He misses the most obvious things sometimes. Speaking of which, I should probably make that doorless obvious in case someone sane finds it." Tails gripped his forehead, trying to think of a way to take all of this in.

"It's only a matter of time before Bark or Fang hears that blabbermouth talk about a 'non suspicious vault door'," said Silver. "They'll be back again; we shouldn't be here when that happens. Or at least, we should be very prepared. I think Blaze and I should probably find a new place to stay. Maybe you should find a temporary place to stay as well, Tails." He used his telekinesis to organize the wrecked living room as he spoke. "I just placed your stuff back where it was. It's all good now. I might have missed some stuff though, and I still have no idea what you mean by your hook."

"I doubt it will be the same. No offense, but blind folks tend to notice small details very easily." Tails placed a hand on his furniture and noticed that it was misplaced by a foot. "This is going to take some getting used to..." He groaned, sitting down on the unfamiliar sofa.

"...This is just awful. This is terrible." Tails stretched his body across the couch, only to find it incredibly uncomfortable. "I don't even want the couch anymore. The couch is tainted. It's just tainted."

"Tails, you can lament your couch later," said Blaze. "Right now, we have bigger problems on our hands. I think we should ask the Rabbits for help. They have a summer house in Bygone Island. Hopefully Cream isn't too upset to see me like this." Blaze sighed, having not seen her best friend in quite a while now.

"Are you kidding me? Cream loves you." Tails sat up., trying to look in the direction of the voice but failing miserably. "She would be glad to help. I'll go ask her right now"

Blaze glanced at Silver, unsettled by Tails' offer. Silver silently agreed and stretched his hand out to Tails.

"Tails, you've been out all day," he said. "You should get some rest."

Tails nodded. "You're right. Let's call Vanilla and ask if we could spend the night there. Then you guys can leave for Bygone at dawn."

Silver stared at Tails, who was missing the point. That was a rare occurrence. It wasn't every day that the genius prodigy was the one acting stupid.

"Tails, maybe you should rest _here_ while Blaze and I go." Silver continued, explaining very slowly.

Tails gestured off to the side with his hand upon hearing this, as he wasn't expecting them to come to this conclusion. "But why? You want me to stay here? By myself?"

"You're clearly tired and we can't really have you along since..." Silver looked over to Blaze, hoping she could save him from a potentially troubling conversation.

Blaze nodded. She thought that Tails shouldn't come, but she also knew that he wanted to prove that he wasn't useless, despite no one else thinking that way in the first place. Then, she came up with an idea...

"Tails, I actually have something for you to do. I'm worried that they might take Marine as a hostage. If they find her as well, she might be in big trouble. I'll write down her address, and you can take that to Cream. I want you guys to check up on her and maybe take her to somewhere safe instead."

Marine escaped the Sol dimension with Blaze when Eggman Nega took over. Since then, Marine had lived by herself near the shores of Station Square. It's been a while since anyone had seen her, but they still kept in touch.

"Yeah...that sounds like a good idea." Tails smiled at this. He relaxed back into his couch and realized just how tired he was. "I think...I think I'm going to go to sleep." He yawned. "Can you give Cream the address while you're there? I might lose it."

"Sure thing. I'll see you when all of this is over, Tails." Blaze smiled, hoping this wouldn't be the last time she saw the two-tailed fox.

"I'll see you around, buddy." Silver waved farewell and went to grab their bags.

"Alright. I'm hitting the hay. I hope you guys have a safe journey."

Tails got up, took two steps forwards, and tripped on the coffee table that was pushed two feet to the right of its original place.

"I swear to Chaos I'm going to **MURDER** those clowns!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter lacked substance and was mostly character interaction, but I think one of those is ok after back to back chapters of shit going on. I also have two new editors with me, since my previous editor needed to drop this for more important things. Special thanks to Leodragon and Bearfoottruck for editing this for me.


	8. Teaching the neighbors some fun new words

The Rabbits had a lovely little cottage. Despite what their attitude, mannerisms, and lifestyle showed, they were actually very wealthy folks who chose to live a modest and humble life baking cookies and planting flowers. Cream didn't mind her mother's choice one bit and preferred the calm atmosphere of the quiet life she led. Well, it wasn't exactly quiet what with Sonic and his friends around, but most of the time she led a peaceful life with her mother, Cheese and Chocola, and Gemerl... Gemerl was dysfunctional at the moment. She didn't like to think about it.

When Blaze and Silver came by last night and explained their situation, Vanilla was more than happy to help. After getting permission to stay at their summer home on Bygone Island, Blaze wanted to have a moment and talk with Cream.

"Cream," she said, scribbling an address on a blank piece of paper and handing it to her. "Tails is going to come over tomorrow and ask you to guide him to this place. It's where Marine lives You've met her before, right?" Blaze yawned, running a hand through her messy hair. She looked like a mess, tired, exhausted, and very tense. "Can you please help him get there? I would do it myself but..."

Cream didn't hesitate for a beat and agreed to help.

The next morning, Tails awoke from his sleep and stretched his arms. He didn't dream at all, and he didn't feel very rested as a result. He woke up in the middle of the night more than once, and it always took him more than 20 minutes to fall back asleep. He would have loved to just stay in bed and spend his day listening to audiobooks and eating mint ice cream, but he had things to do.

He got up and trudged his way to the bathroom. He washed his face, brushed his teeth, combed his unfixable curls, and headed downstairs. He tripped on a chair that was not there two days ago, stumbled frantically, and banged his shin against the coffee table. He then spent the next two minutes teaching the entire neighborhood explicit words in four different languages. Afterward, the young fox headed over to the Rabbits' cottage. He suspected that they would try to offer him so much food that breakfast just didn't seem like a good idea.

Indeed, he was right. Not that he was complaining. Cream and Vanilla were the best in Mobius when it came to baking pastries. After a very satisfying meal, Vanilla left the two to do their own thing.

"So did Blaze give you the address to Marine's place?" Tails asked.

"Yes. Thankfully she lives in Station Square, so this probably won't take us more than a day." Cream pondered something as she spoke. Would she be able to help Tails in a way that wasn't rude or inconsiderate? Would she be able to help him at all in the first place? Cream sighed and got up from her seat, walking over to the phone. Amy was a field medic in training, so she would probably be a lot more help than herself... At least. that's what Cream guessed.

"Cream? Where did you go?" Tails asked, hearing the young rabbit walk away.

"Oh, I'm just going to make a quick phone call. Please stay still." Cream picked up the phone and dialed Amy's number.

"Oh, hi Cream, what's up?" Came the answer.

"Hi, Amy. Tails needs me to help him out, but I don't think I'm qualified to do it. Could you maybe help the both of us and-"

"Cream, all you need to do is make sure he doesn't leave your line of sight and that you don't use any non-verbal communication. He won't be able to understand you otherwise."

Cream sighed. She expected something like this. Amy was so busy these days.

"I suppose so. I'm just worried that I might do something wrong and hurt Mr. Tails..."

"You'll do fine. And I thought you dropped the whole Mr. and Miss thing?"

"I did… It just comes up whenever I'm nervous..."

Tails felt a bit awkward listening to the whole conversation. Ever since he lost his sight his hearing gotten much better, leading to situations like this where he would eavesdrop without ever meaning to.

"Amy, I really don't think I can do this on my own though." Cream begged one last time, hoping that Amy would finally give in. Unfortunately, she wouldn't.

"Sorry, Cream. I promised to help Big find Froggy. The big dingus lost his best friend again. Poor guy. I'm surprised he never loses his home."

Cream hung up the phone after a quick 'thank you anyways' and walked back to the table Tails was at. He seemed quite puzzled and was clearly thinking about something very thoroughly.

"You know, if I had a nickel every time I befriended a purple cat who was strong enough to fight robots in a one on one combat, I would have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's strange that it happened twice, right?" Tails said, bringing his mind out of the rabbit hole he was going into.

"Um...sure." Cream wasn't sure how to respond to that. She just nodded and stared at the sleeping chao on the table.

"Alright, let's go then. Are you coming Cheese?"

"Chao!" Cheese answered enthusiastically.

"Of course he is. I wish I was as enthusiastic as him." Tails sighed, grabbing the cane beside the chair. "In hindsight, I don't know why I was so excited to do this for Blaze. I'm going to Station Square two days in a row now." Tails moved some of the curls that were getting in his face. He should probably get a haircut soon.

"Here. Let me help you. Cream cleared up the rest of his messy bangs. Cheese then watched as his one and only friend started blushing.

"Chao?"

Cream flinched, taking a step back and tidying her shirt in an act of panic. It was moments like this that made her glad she was the only one who understood what Cheese said all the time.

"Thanks, Cream." Tails said, oblivious to the situation.

Cheese crossed his stubby little arms, frowning at the blushing rabbit.

"Let's go, Mr. Tails!" Cream yelped, taking Tails' hand and dragging him along a bit faster than Tails would have liked.

Tails fell asleep on the train, leaning against the back of his seat. He slept like an angel, quiet and still. He was tired from yesterday's travels, and he wasn't ashamed to not make a secret about it.

Cream wondered how Tails was coping with everything going on around him. Of course, their lives were never the quiet type. In fact, Tails had participated in a war that ended with him removing an entire species of Mobians from the surface of the planet. (This was something his brain made **sure** to suppress, though he had confided with Cream about it once.)

But when Cream thought about it some more, she realized their lives had gotten tamer as time went on. Of course, Eggman never truly stopped attacking and trying to take over the world, but his attempts went from destroying the moon to causing a ruckus in downtown. He had made attempts to steal the Master Emerald and all that, which did lead Sonic into an adventure every now and then, but that 'every now and then was getting further and further apart. Sonic thought Eggman was going senile. Amy thought that he had spent all his savings for world domination. Either way, life was a lot more peaceful now. For better or for worse.

Usually their adventures never really had lasting consequences. The moon collapsed in on itself and ended up as a sphere again, and every other damage Eggman caused was eventually fixed by the old resistance/restoration. But Tails losing his sight wasn't like that. It would have been like Sonic losing an arm or Knuckles losing a foot. It was strange to think that something Eggman did lead to this outcome. Something as life changing as this.

Just as Cream finished her thoughts on the matter, the train arrived at Station Square. "Tails, we're here." Cream shook him awake and guided him off the station.

Walking down Station Square was a strange experience. Most residents in Station Square were humans, not Mobians. While there weren't any species spanning racism going on, this made the few Mobians that came to Station Square very recognizable. Add to the fact that Tails was a hero to this city, and people often stared at him when he was in town. While Wave simply ignored all of this, Cream wasn't someone who could do something like that.

It felt like everyone was staring at the two. Cream knew that was silly, people had things to do other than stare at random Mobians, but she just couldn't get the nagging feeling out of her mind.

"Cream, you know where we're supposed to go, right? This sounds like the shopping mall, and the mall is away from the harbor if I recall correctly."

Cream snapped out from her trance again and looked around where they were. Indeed, they were in the wrong part of town. Cream sighed and apologized. "Yeah, sorry. I wasn't paying attention. We need to go that-a-way... Wait, do you see that?"

"Cream, I made a promise to myself to punch anyone who asks me that from now on."

"Sorry. Over there, that's Amy and Sonic! What are they doing together-" Cream blushed, covering her mouth with her hand. She never thought she would see the day when Sonic was smiling while he was carrying a bag for Amy in one hand and holding her hand with the other.

"Sonic is with Amy? Are they on a date? That- That liar! He told me he was helping Big find Froggy! I knew something was up when Amy said the same thing to you!"

"You could hear that?" Cream asked, unable to keep her blush down. She kept a mental note to not say anything important around Tails, even if she thought she was safe.

"Yeah, I have great hearing now. When I speak to Nicky again, he's going to hear about this." He grumbled, squeezing the handle of his umbrella. Cream snickered. Tails never really looked angry. He just looked cute and fluffy no matter what he did. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing. Let's get moving." Cream replied quickly, going in the right direction this time.

Marine lived in an apartment as well. Admittedly, it was a much nicer one than the ones Blaze and Silver stayed at, but she was also a permanent resident there unlike those two. It was a nice house for one person, with a living room that also worked as a kitchen, a bedroom, and an extra room that Marine used as a study. Marine opened the door cautiously but greeted them brightly when she saw who it was.

"Cream! It's so good to see ya! And Tails too? What are ya'll doing here?" Marine leaped at her rabbit friend and hugged her tightly. She had that slight Downunda accent that amused Cream to no end. It was cute.

Cheese popped out from behind Cream's back and yelled. "Chao!"

"Oh, sorry Cheese. I didn't see you there."

Cream patted Marine on the back in response to her hug. "Blaze asked us to see how you were doing. She was worried you might be in trouble."

"Trouble? Why would I be in trouble? Oh, my apologies. I'm mistreating my guests. Please, do come in." Marine held the door open for the two, and Cream led Tails into the apartment. Marine noticed Cream guiding tails by his wrists, and remembered what Sonic told her several weeks ago.

"Oh, Tails. I heard about your accident. I'm so sorry that it happened."

"I've been adjusting. It's okay." Tails smiled in return and sat down next to Cream on the couch. He leaned backward, trying to make himself comfortable.

Marine brought herself a chair to sit on and sat in front of Cream. "So why would I be in trouble? Did something happen to Blaze?"

"Actually, yes." Cream continued, rubbing Cheese's head and keeping him on her lap. "According to Tails, she, er...Tails, what did happen?"

"She was attacked by a group of mercenaries called the Hooligans. They're very unlucky, but when things do turn out their way, they're a very dangerous group. Thankfully, they were unlucky as usual and couldn't find where she and Silver were hiding, so nothing really happened other than my furniture being tainted. But this still means they were being targeted, and she had to leave with Silver to Bygone Island. Vanilla has a summer house there." Tails explained, gripping his umbrella handle and twirling it around.

"That's awful. And I'm guessing they thought I might be their next target and sent ya'll to check up on me? How nice of her. But really, I'm doing perfectly fine. I even started working with G.U.N to use their new technology to advance their marine forces." She smiled at that last comment and stood up. "Tails, you should have a look at some of the things I made!"

"I swear to Chaos... Fine, I'll listen to you talk about your inventions. Cream, you should stay here and uh..."

"It's fine. You two can discuss your techno mumbo jumbo. I wouldn't understand it even if I was there." Cream smiled, getting up and going to the fridge. "Mind if I help myself to some food, Marine?"

"No, not at all. Feel free to have a snack." Marine showed Tails to her study, where she had blueprints, books, and all sorts of machines she was allowed to bring outside of the G.U.N HQ.

"I'm building ships now. Just like how you built ships for Sonic back on Southern Island. You inspired me to take this path in life, Tails. Thank you so much." Marine said, staring at the wonderful creations she had in the room. Tails could feel it too. Even if he couldn't see them, he could feel the technology blooming around him.

"That's so great to hear, Marine. I'm glad that you are creating new things in this world. What are you working on at the moment?" Tails tapped his cane around to walk forwards and reached her workbench. He grabbed whatever was on there, and it felt like a laptop. "What's this?"

"Oh, that's the computer for the sonar machine I've been building," Marine answered, taking it out of his hands and placing it back down. "It's a delicate machine, so please don't touch it."

"Sonar? Like...radar?"

"Yeah, Sound Navigation Ranging. For submarines and boats. It uses echolocation to navigate through the ocean."

"Navigation...do you think that those could work on planes? Like, maybe a relatively slow flying aircraft?" Tails really didn't want to build up false hope again, but this was technology. It was different. He could trust technology.

"I'm sure it could work, but I'm not sure how effective it would be at real time navigation. I would have to test it." Marine shrugged, noticing how excited Tails seemed for a moment. He was talking faster than before, and his tails were spinning. He was **very** excited.

"Marine, I actually need an assistant right now." His mind spun at a million miles per hour, thinking of how Marine could be the answer to all his problems. "You could move near Cream and work as my assistant while we keep an eye on you! That way you can be safe and work for me at the same time! I'll even pay you! How much do you need?"

Marine blushed a bit, surprised by his offer. "I, I actually don't get any money from doing this. It's just an internship-"

"Don't worry! I'll pay you hourly! I have tons of money from all those patents I made and-" Tails cut her off mid-sentence, but his cutting was met by a cutting of her own.

"Tails, I really don't need the money. And I'm doing fine. I'm safe, and I have a bright future ahead of me. Honestly, I'm not sure if I want to go back to Sol even if Blaze takes back her rightful throne. I-"

However, both of them were cut off when the apartment shook violently, and Cream burst through the door. "Tails! Marine! We need to get out of here! They're here! The hooligans, they're here!"

"That's right little missy, we're right here! Bean and Bark, the fantastic duo!" A bullet shot past the duck, inches away from him. Causing him to jump back in response. "Alright, fine. We have Fang too. But he's the third wheel."

Bark, silent as he always is, charged forwards to take Marine, but he was knocked off by an unexpected force.

"Chao!" Cheese yelled, attacking the polar bear with his entire body. It would have been an amusing sight, the tiny chao fighting one of the strongest beings in Mobius, but what was even less expected was that Cheese was able to keep the fight going in his favor. Weaving around Bark's devastating punches and swings while landing several hits of his own.

Bean, dumbfounded by the tiny chao's ability to fight, did not see Cream tackle him and push him away. Cream wasn't exactly a fighter, but the young rabbit had only gotten better over the years through the adventures and self-defense training she received from Amy. Bean was only slightly taller than Cream, so she felt like she had a fair chance against him.

"Tails, stay back!" Marine said, charging forwards to help Cream, but Tails grabbed her in the nick of time before a bullet landed just where she would have been standing if it wasn't for Tails.

"Marine, you're the one they want. Stay back. I may be blind, but I can still protect you." Tails walked forward with his umbrella in hand, heading towards an annoying voice.

"Really, Cream. I would love to mingle with you in private, but not now! I'm doing business!" Bean never stopped yapping, even during a fight. Cream blushed furiously, and landed a kick on his stomach, causing the duck to fall backward.

Tails grabbed Cream and pulled her in, unfolding his umbrella and using it as a shield to block the bullets coming from Fang.

"W-what? How is an umbrella stopping a bullet?" Cream asked, turning to Tails.

The fox grinned knowingly and moved forwards with the umbrella in front of him as a shield. "Manners maketh man. Be my eyes, Cream. I'll help you approach."

Cream smiled in response, holding the handle with Tails and flying forwards using her ear. Tails helped, using his namesakes to propel themselves further. Cream found Fang on top of a tree nearby and flew right into him. The sniper couldn't prepare for the rabbit and fox duo and jumped off for a tactical retreat, rolling as he landed and firing another shot at the duo, which flew past them and into the empty air as the sniper escaped.

Cream sighed, glad that she wouldn't have to resort to any more violence. She helped Tails get to the ground safely, but she noticed that the young genius was crying.

"T-tails? Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing is wrong. These are tears of joy. I just...I just flew for the first time in Chaos knows how long." Tails covered his eyes, sniffing. "I... I thought I could live without flying but...no, this just made me realize I need to work even harder to get this back. I love flying way too much, Cream."

Cream giggled, wiping away the water droplets soaking his cheeks. "I understand. I really do. I'll do my best to help you, Tails. I-"

"Guys watch out!"

A giant energy ball flew towards them and hit the duck preparing to throw a bomb at them. Marine was seen through her blown up apartment walls, radiating a mysterious green light around her wrist that faded away. She sighed and collapsed on her knees.

"I don't like doing that. That's way too tiring." She muttered, wiping the sweat off her forehead.

"What was that? I've never seen you do that before." Cream asked, running back towards the raccoon.

"It's...a power I have. I only use it when I absolutely have to though, since it takes a lot out of me. It's a very powerful attack but...I'm not too sure how or why I can do it."

"Speaking of power, where' Bark?" Tails asked, keeping his umbrella ready.

"Um..." Marine stared at the blue chao sitting on top of the fainted polar bear, victorious.

"Cheese! You're safe!" Cream spread her arms out, inviting him into a hug.

"Chao!" Cheese answered. How foolish to assume that anyone could defeat Cheese.

"I knew he would be okay. Cheese is...well, Cheese" Tails explained to the confused raccoon. "By the way, I'm sorry that your apartment is destroyed, but do you want to think about my offer again?" Tails asked shyly, lending his hand out for her to shake.

Marine looked around her. There were two passed-out assassins that were after her in the living room, a blown-up wall in her kitchen, and a wild sniper yet to be caught.

"Yeah, I think I'll take up on your offer," Marine answered, heading towards her study to pack all her important belongings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me way too long to write, and it's not even that good. I hated writing this so much because of an awful writer's block I got during this. I wrote most of this in one day, and I feel like the quality shows. I'm awful at writing action scenes, and I think that my writer's block and refusal to write this was mostly because of that. It turned out much shorter than what I imagined, but I'm just so glad it is done. Once again thank you to Leodragon for helping me edit this.
> 
> Another beta reader asked why Tails can't just fly with a buddy all the time and my answer to that is A) That was a spur of the moment kind of thing and even at that moment things could have gone horribly wrong, and B) really? Do you really want to depend on someone else your entire life?


End file.
